I am an ESL teacher who has yet to enter the 21st century. Terrible, but true! Since there is now a computer sitting on my desk I thought that I had best use it for something other than collecting dust!

Hereís my problem, and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction! Topic: Personal Databases!

I have lots of activities for class (not entire lessons) scratched out on various wads of paper and stuffed into different binders. There are about 50 or so saved on my computer (in Word form), but I am painfully aware of the inefficiency of having to search through my folders looking for them one by one.

I have been surfing online for simple little database software that can help me organize, search, and add to the collection of activities I have, but to no avail! I was naively expecting to find some pretty little template that I could just plug information into and it would do all the cool stuff by itself.

Unfortunately the few resources I have found will allow me to do everything from managing student grades, to making an omelets, to readjusting Death COM 5ís position in orbit. Yikes!

What I need is a small, idiot-friendly database to help me manage these. The fewer functions, the better! Ideally they would be organized by only a few fixed categories and have a large chunk of space in which to write up the activity. It doesnít seem like such a wild idea, but my few forays into database software have left me utterly humiliated. Am I out in left field?

Can anyone volunteer some suggestions? Itís not for profit (buy or sell), just for my own sanity!

Links, ideas, software, database development tutorials, or someone willing to help me monkey around with it will be much appreciated.

Good luck on your database hunt...As for me, I just use Word. There are two different "styles" I've used for a problem like this. For example, in some classes I use Story Dictations. I now have a Word document called, "Story Dictations" which has every one I've ever written on it. When I start a new class, I can peruse the "database" and select what I want. I also have an exercise called "Scrambled Sentences" which consists of envelopes with cut up sentences in them (with two extra distractors). I have an overall list of all the sentences I've done, and where I can find them (in the shoeboxes in my closet heh) so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

The other thing I've done is to put whatever I've been doing into a folder, with a list of what's in it so I can search the list and know where to go for the information. I know that's not what you asked, but in my opinion, databases are often not worth the work you put into categorizing everything.